I'm not talking about writing out dialogue in Cockney or changing the spelling of "no" to "nae" so it sounds like a thick Scottish brogue, but more about characters who speak with a speech pattern that sounds either subtly or very different from our own.
For example, the character Alberich in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books comes from a different country than where the story takes place, and naturally speaks a different language. It's part of his speech pattern to reverse the subjects and the verbs. Another example is the whole world of The Dark Tower by Stephen King. The characters use words and phrases that sound archaic to readers and structure their sentences in ways that sound incomplete. It creates the sense that these people have a regional dialect.
Do unusual speech patterns like these enhance the characters and the world, or do you find them confusing/hard to read?
Gender:
Points: 890
Reviews: 3